


Before the Snow

by holyfant



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-22
Updated: 2012-05-22
Packaged: 2017-11-05 19:49:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/410343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holyfant/pseuds/holyfant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Sherlock is hard to handle. No one can take it like Lestrade can, and when he can't do it for a minute, there's always John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before the Snow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [drinkingcocoa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkingcocoa/gifts).



“He doesn't mean it.”

Greg looks up from the utterly untelling lines of his hands, cursing himself for leaving his gloves behind in his tactical retreat from 221B. John's breath is a wisp of rising white-transparent cloud, the bitter cold of the bright winter day stealing away his words. His mouth is mostly hidden by his scarf, but his eyes are warm in the breathtaking chill of razor-sharp winter air.

Greg smiles a little. “Of course he does.”

He can't see it, not quite, but there is the suggestion that John's mouth twitches into a small smile of its own behind the scarf.

“He meant it when he said it, but he already doesn't anymore. Not that he'll ever admit it.”

Greg shifts against the coldness of the bench that's numbing his back and legs. Fatigue and cold are quickly dulling the sharpness of his anger. “Then how do you ever know?”

John's look is a mix of empathy and a shrewd, subdued sort of observation. “You know,” he finally says, and Greg isn't sure who the 'you' is referring to. He can guess, though.

He does think he knows, sometimes. Sherlock is still mostly a mystery to him; a puzzling combination of child and brilliance that is still startling sometimes, because how can someone make such finely drawn observations of human behaviour and motivation to turn around and say, with the snap of a glove pulled off in disgust: “Why do I even keep you lot around at all?”

It's such a perfect impression of a teenager rebelling against his parents that Greg doesn't know what to do with it. He isn't Sherlock's parent. Never really wanted that particular job, even if it sometimes feels like it's been bestowed on him.

It doesn't usually hurt; Greg can look at Sherlock and see how much he needs it, their gazes, and how much he needs to convince himself that he doesn't. He can see how this man isn't ready for teamwork and that until he is, if he ever is, this will have to do. That had been true, at least, until suddenly there _was_ a team, formed in only a matter of hours during which Greg hadn't heard from Sherlock, and John Watson had materialised out of nothing and slipped with his characteristic unassuming presence between the mere mortals and the undimmed light that could be Sherlock on a crime scene. “Come off it. You'd sulk if there was no audience.” John Watson, leaning over a corpse with a slight wince that expresses everything Sherlock's detachment doesn't, can say that sort of thing to Sherlock Holmes with the easy comfort of people who can read each other's gestures – Greg remembers the glare John had received in return on that particular occasion, and how it had been contradicted by the small quirk of a mouth corner when John hadn't been looking at Sherlock anymore. Greg _had_ been, and it had been a bit shocking.

“It doesn't usually affect you this much,” John says, now lightly bouncing on the balls of his feet, trying to keep warm.

Greg breathes; whatever he could have said to that evaporates and freezes upwards into the sky.

John is John and he's not Sherlock, but he still knows more than he lets on. “Then again he doesn't usually say it to _you_ alone, does he?”

“I'm not incompetent,” Greg says, the words sharp and cold in his throat.

John is frowning at him when Greg looks up at him. “Of course you're not.”

“He can do things that no one else can,” Greg tells him, finally shoving his numb fingers into his coat, as though giving up on trying to read meaning into them. “But so can I.”

John eyes him. “Don't let it get at you,” he says, gently, all John Watson, never Sherlock Holmes, who would have pried for the _why are you letting it get at you now, after all this time, you're used to it, why?_ and without doubt would have found the answer, too. Bastard.

There's no telling if John knows the answer, but it wouldn't surprise Greg if he did. And truth be told, it still sometimes shakes him up a little to be inside 221B Baker Street, to see the evidences of an insane kind of domesticity, of lives mingling easily – Sherlock's microscope set on top of John's laptop, as though Sherlock is studying whatever John's keeping in there; one of John's medical textbooks flipped open on a page on something that apparently interested Sherlock enough to scribble the margin full of spiky notes; a box of Thai take-out with two sets of chop sticks in it – and the small ways that Sherlock and John move around each other in the flat, never touching but never giving each other the space that they would anyone else, John letting Greg in with a smile and making tea, passing Sherlock a cup that is probably perfectly to his tastes and sometimes even getting a _thanks_ in return in the form of a small smile or a flick of eye or a lingering arpeggio. It's... still strange, and it quiets something in Greg that is sometimes yelling loudly.

It's easier for Greg to parse Sherlock's gibes when they're not inside that home. It's just more personal that way.

“I need him to solve this,” Greg says, looking away from John and focusing on the intense, bright white of the sky hushed and pregnant with snow.

“You know he'll do it. He needs it too.” John sounds content, as though they're not standing outside in one of the coldest patches of winter London has had in years, and as though Greg didn't say not fifteen minutes ago: “You're _thirty-five years old_ , Sherlock, when are you going to –” and then losing words in the rush of fatigue and _God why can't you just leave things alone now and then_ , losing track and slamming doors. “He's being more of a wanker than usual,” John continues lightly, and when Greg looks at him he's watching the sky, just like Greg was. “You can take it. Not a lot of people can take it like you can.”

Greg smiles in spite of himself at the strange approval, the weird kind of trust.

“Well,” John says, sending his words upward to join the silent snow clouds, “I need a cuppa. Want to come back up?”

“I suppose he's had his time-out now.” Greg sighs, starts to get to his feet, which he can't actually feel anymore.

“He's probably itching for us to come back in so someone will pay him attention,” John replies, and flashes Greg a smile. The implicit teaming up, the _yeah, I'm with you_ makes Greg want to reach out and grab John's shoulder, but he settles for answering the smile.

*

Sherlock glares at them when they come in. “You're both freezing.”

“Worried about us now, are you?” John asks lightly as he tugs his gloves off his fingers with some difficulty, the frost-flush on his cheeks intensifying through the contact with the warm air in the flat.

Sherlock offers nothing, turns his back on them, stares out the window with his hands clasped on his back. He's dressed now, having traded the dressing gown for his usual crisp, dark clothes that clash a little with the softness of his socked feet on the dark floorboards of the flat.

“Tea or coffee?” John, supremely undisturbed and calmly unwinding his scarf, asks Greg. Greg is still struggling to get out of his coat, his hands extremely uncooperative and shaky with frost. He can't catch a hold of the zipper.

“Coffee,” Greg decides immediately. It's been almost thirty hours since he's slept, and there's no telling when the case will finally break enough for him to catch a wink. John steps into the kitchen while Greg continues to fumble with his coat, his fingers now starting to burn a little as they begin to warm.

“Oh, for God's sake,” Sherlock snaps, seemingly at the window, then whips around. He's frowning, but before Greg can say anything he's crossed the space of the living room and is close by, suddenly, and his long fingers are tugging the zipper down in one fluid movement. “Stop bumbling, Lestrade,” he says, then looks Greg in the eye with a look that's... half-defiant, half- _something_ , and Greg doesn't really know what it means that Sherlock steps away from him jerkily, clumsily, as though he's lost his footing.

Greg becomes aware of John leaning against the doorway that leads into the kitchen. He's looking at Greg when Greg clicks his eyes over to him, but breaks the eye contact almost immediately to glance over at Sherlock. Greg can't help but follow the look, and finds Sherlock looking dismayed and tense. He can feel information being exchanged in that look between John and Sherlock, but can't quite hear what it is they're telling each other.

It's awkward and lasts too long, this strange, heavy moment, so he clears his throat and shakes his coat off his shoulders. His hands, tingling, seem to be regaining something resembling a blood stream.

“Coffee's almost ready,” John says, sounding absolutely normal, and disappears back into the kitchen, which does nothing to deflate the tension. Greg looks at Sherlock, who is still staring at the space that held John a second ago, and wonders if Sherlock feels it too, this kind of social pressure, the accumulating weight of silence held for too long, the almost irrepressible desire to say something – anything – that will just fill the space between people.

“Why isn't it a suicide?” Sherlock says without warning, and only then makes eye contact with Greg again. His face has slipped back into the familiar untelling smoothness that he adopts when he knows things but wants other people to know them too. Greg knows that look, though he can't be sure Sherlock knows he understands it.

“Victim had a severe, late-stage form of muscular dystrophy. Highly unlikely that she was able to wield a gun with a trigger that tight.”

Sherlock nods, steps away, goes back to stand in front of the window. He's a bit blurry against the bright, snow-laden sky that peeks in.

John reappears and hands Greg a mug of steaming coffee. “Sit down,” he says, and smiles that smile again, that smile of being a team. “No, stop,” he continues, a little louder, and Greg realises he's addressing Sherlock, now, who has angled his head so he can glance at them over his shoulder, “we need to warm up again, and it's your fault, so you'll just have to wait for us to finish.”

Sherlock actually chuckles; a short, low laugh. Greg slides into a chair, feeling a bit strange, relishing the slight burn of the cup of coffee against his still cool fingers.

John pads over to the window and holds out a mug.

“I didn't ask for any,” Sherlock says.

“No, you asked for cigarettes and referenced cocaine and then you insisted Greg go and freeze to death outside.” John's voice is crisp. “You're getting this instead.”

Greg can only see how Sherlock's blurrily outlined dark head tilts a little, and then he curls his fingers around the cup slowly, as though each long digit has to make up its mind independently of the others.

He almost thinks he hears “Thank you,” but he can't be sure. John, who hasn't let go of the cup, who's holding it steady between his hand and Sherlock's, looks over at him and Greg is struck by the two of them against the backdrop of the window and the heavy white-grey clouds over London. Sherlock throws him a glance over his shoulder; it's only by accident that he catches it, though maybe it wasn't an accident, because he was looking at Sherlock, wasn't he?

John lets go of the cup, relinquishing it into Sherlock's hand.

“I'll stoke the fire,” he says, “and then we'll go and see about this suicide.”

“Not a suicide, John,” Sherlock says, and he sounds happy in a quiet way that Greg hasn't heard in a long time. “Murder.”


End file.
